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Animal farm themes and objects
Discuss totalitarianism
Explorations of the symbolism and imagery found in animal farm
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Animal Farm, by George Orwell, takes place at a farm in England in the early 1900s. The farm, called Manor Farm, is owned by an old farmer named Mr. Jones. The animals of the farm strongly dislike Mr. Jones, especially an elderly pig that goes by the name Old Major. One night, Old Major summons all of the animals in to the barn to discuss a dream he had the previous night. Major predicts that the animals will overthrow Mr. Jones and take control of the farm. Shortly after the death of Old Major, two fellow pigs, Napoleon and Snowball, put Major’s plan in to action.
Following the expulsion of Jones, Napoleon gets his rabid dogs to chase Snowball off, giving himself full control of the farm. Napoleon continues to abuse his power and the animals. The animals do not fully realize how unfairly they’ve been treated until one night they see Napoleon, along with the other pigs, fraternizing with a human. The animals see that this is not what they had in mind when they first heard Majors plan for animals having control of the farm. They understand that all animals are not equal in the eyes of the pigs. Throughout the entirety of Animal Farm the author, George Orwell shows just how horrendous totalitarianism is. Totalitarian means ‘total control’
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Particularly after Clover sees her former comrades slaughtered before her eyes, she states; “Instead- she did not know why- they had come to a time when no one dared to speak his mind, when fierce growling dogs roamed everywhere, and when you had to watch your comrades torn to pieces after confessing to shocking crimes” (Orwell 78). The negative effects of totalitarianism is shown best when Clover expresses her thoughts on not being able to speak her mind and denied an opinion. This is much what would happen among the civilians living in Communist countries. People were scared to speak their mind, and some were too scared to even leave their
”(Page 33, chapter5) Thus, this proves that Napoleon is an obnoxious pig because just because he was against Snowball’s windmill idea he urinated all over his work so he could get his way. Comprehension 3. If there had been one more chapter in Animal Farm, I think it would go as follows: Weeks pass by and the animals still could not get over the fact of what they had witnessed looking through the window. They felt betrayed and exhausted and had lost hope for Animal Farm.
George Orwell's novel Animal Farm is subtitled "a Fairy Story", a label that may make the book seem innocent and appropriate for children and classroom settings. However, the title is misleading. Animal Farm is a work of Communist propaganda. It outlines and even encourages the overthrow of the government, and explains how to set up and maintain a communist state. It portrays government as corrupt and the public as stupid and easily manipulated. Orwell himself wavered between being a socialist and an anarchist.
Animal Farm, written by George Orwell, is a dystopian allegory. Its book cover sports a red and black background, with a pig (presumably Snowball) sneaking in front of a windmill. Set in Manor Farm, a group of farm animals are mistreated by their owner, Mr. Jones. Shortly before Old Major, an old, highly-respected pig, dies, he tells all the animals to revolt against Mr. Jones. After his death, and shortly after, the expulsion of Mr. Jones, leadership on the farm is divided between Snowball and Napoleon, two intelligent pigs who utilize conflicting methods of rule. Initially, they held equal sway among the other, less intelligent residents of the farm. However, when Snowball, a passionate speaker, tried to convince the farm to build a windmill to make their lives easier, Napoleon set vicious dogs he had raised himself to drive Snowball out of the farm. Justifying this by saying the windmill was a useless idea that would overburden the farm, Napoleon takes sole authority of the farm, leading the animals in an increasingly harsh manner. Ironically, Napoleon also makes a plan to build a...
Snowball and Napoleon held a great deal of contrast between the way they each ruled over “Animal Farm/Manor Farm.” The only thing he did lack, was the ability of pursuasion to the other animals. Snowball had all the right ideas, all to better the whole farm. Napoleon, on the other hand, had a knack for stealing other animals’ ideas, then telling the rest it was his and getting credit for it. His ideas only seemed to benefit the pigs and not the animals. It was this, that led to the crumbling of the farm. Napoleons obsession with becoming the ruler is what got Snowball nearly killed by the dogs...in a plot made by Napoleon. Which then produced a whole new rebellion not of the animals to the humans, but of the animals to the pigs. So for these reasons, Snowball showed better qualities for leadership than Napoleon because he wasn’t selfish and thought about the future of “Animal Farm.” First, the dominated farm animals viewed Napoleon and Snowball differently at different times throughout the book. The way the animals reacted to each leader brought upon new problems of the farm. The animals respected Snowball, and believed that his teachings were all true and had a good cause. Although Snowball and Napoleon had superior qualities leadership, it was clearly Snowball who had the better qualities for running a farm. Under Snowballs’ rule, the animals were generally content with what was going on and were all for it if it was to better the farm. It was obvious that Napoleon had the better half of getting his own way on the farm. However, the animals had some problems with Napoleon but they didn’t know haw to express their feelings and show him that they didn’t like the way he ran things. It was the animals’ ignorance that helped keep Napoleon in rule for as long as it was. The responses were so different between the animals that it must have been a drastic change between Snowball and Napoleon.
The animals were on an emotional high for the next few days. They set up rules, including the seven commandments, and decided to make Snowball and Napoleon (pigs) the leaders. The animals had meetings every Sunday to discuss and vote on what should happen, and the work schedule for the following week. Every single time an idea was brought up Snowball and Napoleon would disagree. This went on for a year. Finally, at one of the meetings Napoleon and 9 dogs jumped Snowball, and chased him off of the farm. From then on the farm became a dictatorship, not a republic as the animals had dreamed of before the rebellion. Napoleon lied to the animals a lot, but none of them were smart enough to realize it. He planted false memories in the animals heads, and manipulated them. He stole food from them and blamed it on Snowball. Then he started to go against the seven commandments, but none of the animals could remember the seven com...
The novel “Animal Farm” was written by the author name George Orwell. Animal Farm is a novel based upon the lives of a society of animals wanting a better life for themselves living on the Manor Farm. The setting of the book is a farm called “Manor Farm”. The theme of this book is that the animals should make a stand; if they continue doing the same thing they will continue getting the same results. It is better to be free and starving, than to be fed and enslaved.
Mr. Jones was unable to defeat the animals, therefore the animals got a boost of confidence. Now at this point Mollie runs away and Snowball begins his plans for a windmill. When Snowball’s plans are finished, Napoleon’s dog’s start to chase him off the farm. The farm just lost the best leader they could have had. They loose their chance to give input on what direction the farm should go, and Napoleon begings blaming Snowball for all the things that he did not do. Now Napoleon sets the animals to work on Sundays again and acquires Mr. Whymper as the farm’s broker. Napoleon starts to sell some of the farm’s produce. And the pigs start sleeping one hour later, and in beds. Then the windmill gets blown over and Snowball gets the blame. At this point the pigs still continue to abuse the power and stealing from the other animals.
...their greedy eyes they saw no reason to save the other farm animals. The book gives as little evidence of any pig showing protest to Napoleon’s actions except of course Snowball and the other three executed pigs.
Animal Farm by George Orwell is a satire of the Russian Revolution that took place during the late 1930s. Orwell uses vibrant characters such as Snowball, Old Major, and Napoleon to represent some of Russia’s horrific past. While Old Major represents the idea of revolution and Snowball represents the idea of industrialism, Napoleon represents the totalitarian dictatorship in Russia. Animal Farm is a good example of what happened to Russia during this time period. While Animal Farm could represent any dictatorship, it more specifically represents the totalitarianism brought on by Joseph Stalin through communism.
When Major dies the animals’ end up rebelling against their human master managing to overthrow him. After the rebellion the most outspoken pig, Napoleon, manages to become the leader along with Snowball, who is the most eloquent pig. Napoleon figures out a way to get Snowball kicked out of the farm so he can be the leader himself. Napoleon is a back-stabbing traitor. He becomes just like the humans and dominates over the other animals. Napoleon breaks the laws but since he has the other animals in such a strong hold they do not seem to care. Napoleon is the evil character in this novel. He is almost like an animal version of Adolph Hitler because he is doing wrong behind everyone’s back and all the animals still love him but only because they have no idea what Napoleon is really about.
Some of the major characters have passed and Snowball never made a reappearance. At this point Napoleon allows a human to come onto the farm and make comments about it. The working class worked away and it seemed that no one retired. It was as if you worked until you could no longer work or died. The human that came onto the farm was Mr. Pilkington and it seemed as if Napoleon and the other pigs got along with him fairly well. The pigs and Mr. Pilkington go off and start drinking around a table and playing cards. The other animals watched through the window in dismay. “Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”(133) The working class sees the exchange between pigs and man and can not see the possible difference between the two. Even though the working class can tell that the pigs are turning into man it seems that they continuously accept the fact, without any question. It was as if they had another Mr. Jones but were willing to accept it because the terms seemed better than what they had been. This can help truly show just how naive a working class can be if persuaded to think that everything is better when in all reality it was
After a while, the animals ended up rebelling, and managed to kick out Mr. Jones. During the beginning of “Animal Farm’s” reign under Snowball and Napoleon’s (main characters) lead, it brought the animals on Manor Farm together into a peaceful world. However, after this initial stance of power, Snowball and Napoleon began to fight for it. In the end, Napoleon ends up with control of the farm and Snowball is never seen again. Power is a corrupting influence in Animal Farm and both Snowball and Napoleon’s way of leading are very different.
Napoleon started taking tasks into his own hands and this, somehow, gave him all the power on the farm without the animals fully recognizing what he has done. Napoleon starts having other animals work more so he could work less, telling all the animals what their job was, started changing the rules, and took other animals’ ideas. The laws change because Napoleon becomes friends with humans and the pigs start walking on two legs, they have animals as enemies, the pigs started wearing clothes, the pigs started sleeping in a bed, Napoleon started drinking alcohol, the pigs began executing other animals, and they go against Snowball. The animals broke all of the commandments in this
Although Napoleon initially opposed the windmill, he was now for it once Snowball was kicked out of the farm. Now all the animals putting all their effort toward the completion of the windmill, but storm occurs which destroys the windmill. Napoleon puts the blame on Snowball and his malicious will. Napoleon rose to power by instilling fear of death within the animals and this can be a powerful motivator. The pigs continue breaking the principles of Animalism by living in the human home and consuming alcohol.
Once Old Major dies the animals become more violent and rebel. They are lead by two primary pigs, Napoleon and Snowball. Napoleon and Snowball disagree over every idea. This presents a problem because they need one leader, or two leaders that agree on something. So in the book, Snowball is ran off by Napoleon, which in return gives total control to Napoleon.